Something in me changed on Tuesday as well...I started to tremble when I consider the future.
I weep for all the people whose lives were snuffed out, I weep for the families and friends they leave behind. I weep with pride when I hear the stories of bravery on the part of passengers of the 4th plane, who were committed to limiting the numbers of human casualties at the expense of their own lives. I weep with pride at the sacrifices made by the rescue workers who perished trying to save the life of another. I weep with pride for the many communities of volunteers across the nation and the world who are focusing upon providing resources to the rescue effort.
I feel anger too, but I am more consumed with dread. I see and hear people clamouring for reprisal. People who are usually rational giving into their anger and fear and lashing out with hatred,lumping ALL Muslims, ALL Middle Easterners together. An eye for an eye, where does it end?
In the city where I live there is a large international population, due to the local university. Young adults who attended class on Monday are fearful to return, because their classmates are now threatening them. American citizens had to close a private school and keep their children home from public school out of fear for their children's well being because they are of Middle Eastern descent. Respected doctors are deferring their patients to other doctors of non-Middle Eastern descent because of threats. In a city 45 minutes away, a Muslim center was the scene of a drive-by shooting. A friend in another city told me her employees are callig off or going home early because they are being taunted and threatened by their customers. In my city, a police vehicle sits in the driveway of the local mosque. On Wednesday evening, a man of Mexican descent was assaulted because the American terrorists mistook him for Middle Eastern. Where and when does this bigotry, stupidity and hatred end?
I remember cradling my baby in my arms being numbed by the sight of the Oklahoma bombing. I remember sobbing as I watched scenes of broken children being pulled from the wreckage. Was America overwhelmed by people screaming for reprisal then? Did people cry out for the government to decimate all the militia groups and hate groups--men, women and children--who may have cheered or harboured, trained or supplied the perpetrators of that tragedy?
Maybe it's because people in the Middle East are so different than so many in the West. Different culture, customs, religion, etc. It's easier to think of "them" and "they" versus "us" and "we". It's easier to say "they" all hate "us", no exceptions, and to paste on quaint slurs to dehumanize a whole group of people and allow a horrible concept such as genocide to become a viable alternative.
It was mentioned that this board is for JW topics. There are numerous posters here who grew up in the WTS, they had no choice over their religious upbringing, they had choices of higher education taken away from them, they were taught to think in "us" vs. "them" terms and write off billions of people as worthy of destruction. One little piddly organization was able to do that to its followers in a democratic country. How much choice does a little child or an adult have in a Muslim country, where infractions are punishable by long imprisonment, torture or death?
I don't know what the right answer is. I want someone held accountable for the terrible murders on Tuesday, but I don't know what price I am willing to pay, am I willing to have small children murdered?. I was relieved when I listened to government officials state that they would move slowly, to ensure that the right party(ies) were held accountable. It's a touchy situation, and I fear whatever the response is that America is entering a quagmire where there is no easy exit from. I do feel bombing the crap out of an entire country(ies) can't be the right answer. How would the murder of children make us any different from terrorists? "They started it" seems too schoolyard for me.
Michelle
PS. Just to ramble on, anger is all part of the healing process, just please be careful if/when expressing it in front of your kids--it is how racial prejudice is born.